The Queen of Sinister

by Mark Chadbourn

  Caitlin stared at the textbook illustration of a virus, something so deadly stripped down to a cartoon. She'd heard the argument so many times recently in so many different tones, from despairing to furious, that she really didn't have the energy for such a futile exercise.

  'Yes, people need their doctor,' Grant continued. 'But we need you, too. You're never here any more. You never even think about us when you're out—'

  'How do you know what I think?' She winced; too combative - it would only notch the argument up to another level.

  'I know. I can see it in every part of you ... in everything you do. We're just here in the background. You don't give us any time, you don't give us any thought. We're not important. Why can't you forget about your job for a while?'

  'Because people are dying out there!'

  'People are dying in here ... getting older ... time running away...' Resentment rose up in him, old arguments running round and round in a Moebius strip, never answered or explained.

  'You know what I mean,' she replied sullenly.

  'We never even have sex any more—'

  'Oh, God, if I hear that one more time—'

  'I'm not just talking about the sex! It's symptomatic of everything else. It's about intimacy, being close to someone you love ...' He slammed the glass down on a table, slopping beer everywhere.

  'I'm too tired to have sex!' The emotion burst out in a tidal wave. 'I'm worn out by everything ... too frightened ... too ... oh, it doesn't matter!'

  The brief silence that followed her outburst was filled with her guilt, and then anger that she'd given in to her emotions.

  'What's happened to us, Caitlin?' Grant's voice was like glass. 'We never celebrate what we've got... we just exist. Before, we used to celebrate all the time—'

  'Before, before, before, that's all you ever talk about!'

  'Listen to me!' he snapped. 'We've got to do something to put this right, or—'

  'Or what?' She slammed out of her chair and stormed across the room. 'Or what? You'll leave me? Go on, then!'

  She pushed past him, snatched up her coat and marched out into the night.

  Distant flashes of lightning burst intermittently across the sky. There was no rain, but the wild wind still made the trees around the barns sway and moan as if they were alive. Caitlin threw herself into the gale, lost to emotions that felt as if they were tearing her apart. She didn't even think about what she had glimpsed in the lane earlier, or the plague and the suffering.

  Ten minutes later she realised where her subconscious was driving her. The windows of Mary Holden's house were aglow with the ruddy light of a fire. The white cottage stood on the edge of the village, camouflaged by several years' growth of clematis and surrounded by a garden so wild it clamoured on every side as if it was trying to break into the warmth.

  Caitlin felt bad about calling at so late an hour, but Mary had proved a good friend throughout the difficult months since the Fall and would understand.

  Mary answered Caitlin's knock quickly and ushered her in. 'What are you doing out in weather like this?' she said. Mary was in her early sixties but looked much younger: her long grey hair had a lustre and was tied into a ponytail with a black ribbon; she wore faded blue jeans and a too- large white T-shirt that looked as if it had been in the wash with the colours. 'Have you run out of supplies?' she continued. 'I've got a new batch of herbs in. Haven't had a chance to dry them yet, though.'

  'No, it's just...' Caitlin suddenly couldn't stop the tears from streaming down her cheeks.

  'What is it, love?' Mary put an arm round Caitlin's shoulders and led her towards the pleasant heat of the wood-fire. The house had an exotic spicy aroma from the herbs and wild plants Mary collected to turn into potpourri or incense, her dining room packed to the brim with jars of the dried produce. Mary knew everything there was to know about their medicinal uses and regularly supplied Caitlin with mysterious bunches of crispy vegetation to boost the surgery's dwindling medicinal stocks. The remarkable success rate of remedies made up from her scrawled notes had led Caitlin to come to trust her judgment.

  At first Caitlin couldn't get her words out - the tears wouldn't stop, her throat appeared to have closed up - so she sat on the old, comfy sofa in front of the hearth while Mary went into the kitchen to make her a herbal tea.

  'Here you are.' Mary offered a cracked mug. 'Probably tastes like shit, but you won't get much better anywhere else these days.'

  'Sometimes I wonder why I carry on,' Caitlin said. 'There's no point. To anything.'

  'Now you know that's not true.' Mary stretched out next to her like a cat. 'There's a point to everything, even if you can't see it. But that's not what you want to hear, is it? What's wrong?'

  Mary radiated an atmosphere of peace that Caitlin found eminently comforting. In a way, Mary was her equal in the eyes of the community. Most of the villagers had found their way to Mary's door at some time or other, and with increasing regularity, seeking wisdom or herbal remedies that they couldn't get from Caitlin. Finally, it was Caitlin's turn; and so she spoke about the plague, and her fears that it could wipe out the population, and her guilt that she couldn't do anything about it. And against her better judgment, she talked of Grant and the growing gulf between them, and how their relationship appeared to be sliding away, though neither of them wanted that to happen.

  Mary listened intently, nodding at the right points. When Caitlin had finished, Mary smiled a little sadly and said, 'You've got it all on your plate, haven't you? Stronger women than you would buckle under that kind of pressure. You mustn't feel bad about taking a few knocks.'

  'Well, I do. People are relying on me.'

  'You're not Supergirl, you know.' Mary's black cat startled them both, leaping on to her lap from the shadows beside the sofa. Mary had named him Arthur Lee after some sixties singer she admired.

  'What am I going to do?' Caitlin asked.

  'I hate to say this, but I agree with Grant.'

  Caitlin eyed her suspiciously.

  'This life is all about maintaining a balance. You're completely out of whack at the moment. Too much yin, not enough yang. You're not going to do anybody any good by running yourself into the ground.'

  'I feel too worn out—'

  'Then you'd better un-wear yourself. These are hard times, Caitlin, but they've been worse ... not for us, but in the past. It's easy to give in to all the misery, when what we really should be doing is enjoying life. Because we still can.' Mary chewed her lip in thought for a moment before adding, 'And if you don't mind me sticking my nose in, you should start sleeping with Grant again.'

  Caitlin looked up sharply; she hadn't mentioned that aspect to Mary.

  'Come on. It's obvious.' She cracked her knuckles like a docker. 'Sometimes it's hard to find the energy, but it rewards you if you can. Sex is the glue of relationships, Caitlin, and it's what life is all about. It's the opposite of death, of giving up, of getting swamped by...' She waved a hand towards the window.'... what's out there. See it as symbolic.'

  'That's one line the boys never used.'

  They laughed together, wrapped in the firelight and the warmth, the wind bucking with irritation at the panes.

  'I appreciate this, Mary. At this time of night—'

  'You know you're the daughter I never had,' Mary said sardonically.

  'No, really.'

  'I'm a sucker for waifs and strays.' Arthur Lee settled in her lap so Mary could scratch behind its ears. 'We have to pull together, in a way we never did before.'

  Mary was serious and thoughtful, and Caitlin felt calmer simply being around her. Mary was one of those people who felt so much bigger than the actual space they filled. 'You really think it's worth it?'

  'The clock's been set back. We've got a big opportunity to put things right this time.'

  'You're saying all the death and the suffering are worthwhile?'

  'That's the wrong word. But we can't see the big picture - we're too close to it. I know t
his: the world we had before wasn't all it was cracked up to be. People just ... existed. They weren't really happy. They worked, and got more possessions than their parents had, and lived a few years longer, but they weren't really happy. Everything in society was just geared towards maintaining that system ... keeping the status quo ... because there were a lot of people who really benefited from it. Everybody else just drifted along. Is that living?'

  'Tell that to the bodies stacked up in the village hall. I bet they'd prefer a touch of the old life, however dull it was.'

  Mary smiled, but not in agreement. She pushed Arthur Lee off her lap and went to a cupboard containing a row of dog-eared vinyl records. 'They're all useless now,' she said, 'but I keep them for what they mean ... good mojo.' She laughed as she flicked through the rack and selected one, which she handed to Caitlin. It was called Forever Changes by some band called Love and the cover featured a collection of psychedelically coloured heads against a white background.

  'Never heard of them,' Caitlin said, not quite understanding the point. 'The last music I remember hearing was doves'

  'They were around in the mid-sixties,' Mary said. 'They had an underground following but never really broke through into the big time because they refused to get involved in all the corporate bullshit. They were quite brilliant. Anyway, there was a quote about them that's always stuck in my mind. It said something like, "Love perfectly captured the combination of beauty and dread that was around in the sixties." That's what we've got now, beauty and dread.'

  'Not so much of the beauty.'

  'It's there, if you can see past the mud and the shit and the dying. In a way, this time is a lot like the sixties.' Caitlin's disbelieving expression made Mary laugh. 'It was a crucial time ... when everything was poised. Young people, for once, were on the brink of shaping society. Not old farts like me. Young people - younger than you. There was a move away from repression towards freedom ... hope and optimism. The occult - magic, if you like - was back in the mainstream, and a real honest-to-goodness spirituality came with it. For a moment it seemed as if that was the way things were going to go ... towards a new Golden Age.'

  'Then human nature kicked in.'

  'Oh, you are a cynic,' Mary chided. 'No, it wasn't that. Human nature is basically what I've just told you - good stuff... hope ... freedom ... people looking for magic in their lives. But there's a tiny group who always manage to worm their way to the top. You wouldn't look twice at them in the street - they're boring, fade into the background. But they're cursed with having no imagination, and that's a terrible thing. If you've got imagination, you worry about people's feelings because you can put yourself in their shoes, you worry about your place in the world ... in history. These people somehow know they're lacking because they've got no imagination, so they try to fill in what's missing with power - and because they've got no imagination, they'll do anything to get to the top. No scruples.'

  'Is this your conspiracy theory?' Caitlin said with a wry smile.

  'No conspiracy. They stand there in plain sight, but you never think badly of them because they're so boring. They were the ones who killed Kennedy - both of them - Martin Luther King, John Lennon, gave Charlie Manson the wrong direction, blew apart all the protests against the Vietnam War, ruined the hippie movement. They're the ones who killed the sixties.'

  Caitlin waved her away with a chuckle.

  'You can laugh, my girl, but it's true. Those people don't like all the positive things, all that light and freedom and hope, because in that sort of atmosphere they can't exist. They're shown up for what they really are. With the country upside down ... the Government nowhere to be seen ... we're at a point where we can go in that right direction again, if a few good people lead the way. But those shadow-people are only lying low, and I'm betting you they'll soon rear up their ugly, boring heads and try to stop us getting some good out of all this shit.'

  Caitlin looked into the heart of the fire, smiling. The more she learned about Mary, the more she liked her. Mary was an odd mixture of hardness from her days as a psychiatric nurse, and optimism, which she often hid in order to maintain her tough image. Caitlin could listen to her talk all day. But when Caitlin looked up to see Mary watching her with concern, it was clear that Mary had only set off on her impassioned discourse to take Caitlin's mind off her problems.

  'I saw something earlier.' Caitlin struggled to find the words to describe her chilling experience in the lane. 'There were two men on horses. I got the impression they were hunting.' She eyed Mary cautiously. 'Only I'm not so sure they were men. Or horses for that matter. I know it sounds stupid

  'The world's gone crazy in a lot of different ways, Caitlin.' Mary went over to the window to peer out into the turbulent night. 'Some of the things out there ...'

  'You believe all that stuff - all the superstitious rubbish people keep going on about in the village?'

  Mary turned back to her; for the first time her face was impossible to read. 'Don't you?'

  'No.' Caitlin broke her gaze and returned her attention to the fire, unable to accept what she saw in Mary's eyes. 'It's just a human reaction to all the upheaval. When you're trapped in chaos that makes no sense, it's easy to return to childish ways, believing it's all the result of some supernatural power ... God, gods, angels, ghosts—'

  'What did you see tonight?' Mary asked pointedly.

  'I don't know.'

  'You do, Caitlin. It's not rational to deny the evidence of your eyes.'

  'Really, I don't know what I saw. It was dark, stormy. .. It just didn't feel right...'

  Mary fished a bottle of Jack Daniel's from the sideboard. 'Gary Smedley offered it to me in return for dispensing something to help him sleep. So who am I to say no,' she said wryly. She poured two shots and handed one to Caitlin before joining her on the sofa. 'Look,' she began, 'I know you're a down-to-earth sort, so there's no point me testing your credulity with all the wild and woolly theories as to what caused this whole mess. But you can't deny that people have been seeing things—'

  'I don't deny that people think they've been seeing things.'

  'You really do have a poker up your arse, don't you?' Mary knocked back the shot. 'At the risk of souring our friendship, then, let me tell you that my family always believed they were gifted with what they called the sight ... second sight.'

  'Oh, they could see the future.' Caitlin smiled superciliously. 'Did they win the lottery?'

  'Not just the future, missy. Ooh, you really are asking for a clip round the ear.' She poured herself another drink. 'They ... believed ... they could see things happening at a distance, too, and the past ... Anyway—'

  'And you've got it.' Caitlin laughed. 'Do you want to read my palm, too?'

  There was silence for a few seconds, and when Caitlin looked up Mary was deathly serious. 'I can do a lot of things you'd be surprised about.'

  'Go on, then.' Caitlin shrugged. 'I could do with some entertainment.'

  Mary shook her head, thought for a moment, and then recanted. She disappeared towards the kitchen and returned with a large glass bowl half-filled with water that shimmered in the firelight. Despite herself, Caitlin was growing intrigued.

  'Have you heard of scrying?' Mary asked.

  'What's that? A new sport?' Caitlin poured herself another drink, enjoying the fuzzy edge of detachment that the Jack Daniel's gave her.'It's a trick to contact the subconscious. You stare into a bright, mirrored surface - in this case, water - and try to reach a trance state. And then spout whatever rubbish comes to mind.'

  'How will I tell when you're under?' Caitlin teased.

  Mary waved her silent with mock-weariness, then placed the bowl on a coffee table in front of the fire. 'I use it sometimes to try to ... understand what's going on with this world.' Caitlin was puzzled to see a shadow cross Mary's face. 'We might find something that would comfort you.' She winced. 'That's probably not the right word ... something that might give you a bit of perspective, perhaps.'

>   'You're serious?'

  'No talking now.' Mary gave a smile, but there was a weight behind it that made Caitlin obey instantly.

  Silence descended on the room beyond the crackling of the fire; even the gale at the window seemed to abate. Mary leaned over the bowl and stared into the depths of the water. Caitlin watched her for a while until her attention drifted to the fire and then to the patterns made by the occasional raindrops trickling down the panes. She thought of Liam, snuggled up in his bed, and then of Grant. The lucidity surprised her; she saw past the last few years and was overcome with a surprising rush of warm memories, all the reasons why she had fallen in love, the gentleness, the humour, the way she always felt secure around him. It left her with a deep regret that she had run out in such a temper. She'd make it up to him when she got back; perhaps they'd even have sex. If he was asleep, she could wake him ...

  'I see something.' Mary's voice was dreamy. Her eyes flickered in the depths of a trance. 'I see ...' Her words floated languidly.

  Caitlin leaned in closer, curious to hear what she had to say.

  I see ...

  At first Caitlin wondered if Mary was playing a joke to distract her; it was the kind of thing she would do. But there was a strange cast to her face, muscles held in an unnatural position, that suggested it was real.

  'I see a dragon,' Mary said dreamily. 'Lying in the land. It stirs ... a trail ... blue ... so blue.'

  Her words brought a tingle to Caitlin's skin. Though she couldn't explain why, she felt a strange connection.

  'It's rising ... on powerful wings ... above the land now ... changing ... changing ... becoming ... Caitlin

  Caitlin shivered. Instinctively, she was sure there was some meaning hidden in it.

  'And now changing again ... Caitlin becoming the dragon once more ... and flying ... flying over the land..

  A spasm crossed Mary's face. After the stillness it was like a bolt, jerking Caitlin out of her intense concentration.

  Mary's voice dropped to the barest whisper. 'Something is watching ... in the night sky ... like a hole in everything ... so deep ... it goes on for ever ... it's sending out ... things ... to hunt ... the dragon ... Caitlin ... to destroy her ...'